A Year Like No Other – ‘My Year Like No Other’ by Laura Walsh

I would never have thought a year or so ago that I would have lived through a pandemic – me, the eager viewer of ‘The Walking Dead’ and all things apocalyptic! – let alone work through one. 

In that year I’ve discovered that whereas movies depict mass chaos and person-on-person crimes, instead we’ve seen the people we work for, and us as organisation, overcome major obstacles with a tenacity and dignity that are worthy of any silver screen nomination. 

Adapt. Overcome. Survive. – is a mantra I like to use and I feel we’ve done just that, from the people we work for to the line managers, the FaB teams and Personal Development Workers. We’ve all supported each other to do things like: maintain a work/life balance as we work from home; a PDW assisting a person we work for to do an online course; a team member giving a socially distanced lift home due to the reduced transport services; or posting a good news story on Yammer to make someone’s lockdown life a bit brighter that day. 

We adapted to all of this. We overcame major routine changes, restriction changes and uncertainty. We felt our liberty was restricted, which helped us to empathize with the people we work for as they’ve faced this level of restriction most of their lives – we only suffered for a year! We survived long Tesco queues, no toilet rolls and the odd anti-masker. 

So I believe that we, as colleagues, friends (some of us family), but most importantly as human beings, have learned where the inconceivable is conceivable and the conceivable becomes inconceivable – we overcame, we adapted and we most definitely survived. 

By Laura Walsh – Personal Development Worker